Tag: pears

Posted in Friesland Farm

Wreaths, a new path and delphiniums in November!

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 7th November 2022: A new week, lockdown begins for the poultry 🫤 they have no idea why they are not allowed out but so far so good on day one 🙄 Apart from the rain at the exact point I had just got my outdoor attire on to go out and feed and collect eggs 😂

First thing this morning I went and cut plenty of willow and spent a few hours weaving 10 wreath bases 🤪 nearly there now just a few more to do and who knows I may carry on making them for other projects or even get a head start on next years 😂 I also spent a chunk of the afternoon doing social media stuff, it’s a large part of trying to get the word out there and getting any products sold, so if you follow the flower page please give it a share every now and then it would make a small business very happy 🥰

Tuesday: I spent some time in the greenhouse pricking out seedlings of snap dragons and cornflowers. I had one of those very crappy moments that most will have had when growing from seed, when the tray tips over 😭 and all the seedlings just become a jumbled mess 🤦‍♀️ I watered the bulbs in the big tunnel, the anemone and ranunculus are coming through nicely. I watered the chrysanthemums in the small tunnel, they are blooming fabulously and I definitely want to keep those going next year. I spent an hour on the phone to my brother in Australia, mostly with a black screen as he was trying to show me the Luna eclipse which kept going behind a cloud 😂 Our initial conversation was about solar power, which he installs over there and we have been looking into getting here. We had a quote which seemed pretty high and I was chewing over the finer details of the for and against with him and getting a better understanding of what we actually need if anything or if there are different ways to do things 🤷‍♀️

We have had some pretty torrential downpours today, Charlie got caught in one on her way over to me, she was picking me up to drop me off to have my hair cut I felt bad that she got wet on my account.

Nobody can have failed to notice the different weather patterns this year in the UK, it’s November and still no sign of frost in fact even the night time temps are above the average day time ones 🙄 The rain is usually torrential when it arrives in bursts and then the sun comes back out. It is COP27 this week and quite frankly they have not done enough in the last 27 years, I tried to find out exactly what had been achieved but it is hard to find concrete evidence. Putting it bluntly the foot needs to be slammed on the brake and none seem willing to do that. We are definitely rowing up sh*t creek with no paddle now and it’s only going to get worse 😔 My worry is not for myself but the generations that come after me, all we can do is try to prepare for what is ahead, they will need to work out how to survive in an ever increasing warming climate. What we are doing here is taking measures to make sure that the house does not get flooded by constant heavy rain, making sure we have enough water tanks for the drought part of the year and that the house stays cool enough to be bearable in the summer heat. Growing food so that we have something to eat just in case, it is definitely a shift from self sufficiency to being self reliant and self preservation. My brother said ‘try to be optimistic’ I try but I am failing, so my advice is to live on a hill, learn to grow food and provide for yourself 🤪

Well I started off well at the beginning of the week 😂 and then laspsed. The hard thing is trying to think back to what I did 🤷‍♀️ Ummmm 🤨 no idea 🤪 On Wednesday I did go for a walk with Sam and Shelley, a long walk for about an hour and a half, we were on the look out for anything to forage and found some tiny fir cones but not much else. I have spent some time in the greenhouse potting things on and pricking out seedlings. I have also spent some time cutting flowers and foliage for drying and then on Friday we went out for a few hours in the middle of the day but I have no idea what else apart from the usual I have done.

Saturday: A fairly busy day and I have to say a lovely warm day in November 🙄 John has been busy doing more of the path, the dog has been busy walking all over it when he wasn’t looking 😂 I could hear expletives 😬 I have put clean bedding in for the ducks, cleaned out some nesting boxes, got the scythe out and cut down some tall weeds and made some wreaths from ground weeds 😁 It was quite nice to get the scythe out, I didn’t do much but it is so much nicer and quieter than a strimmer. The wreaths I made are from what I think is hoary mustard but I need to wait for it to grow again next year to double check. It is a weed that sends out long growth, it is tough and so ideal for drying and making into wreaths. You can use a whole lot of different types of vine like stems, grape, hop, clematis and weeds, they make lovely wreaths and all with different character. Oh yes I also wove the last few willow wreaths that I need for the workshops, they are all done now and so anymore I do will be spare or to make wreaths to sell. You will be pleased to know that two of the unproductive hens have had a reprieve and gone to a new retirement home 🥰 If anyone else wants a retired hen or two let me know, I’d rather that than the alternative.

Wreath rings made from hoary mustard (I think)

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dawnepears0

You can now buy me a coffee (aka wine 🤪) I actually just thought I would have a look and see what it is all about but had to go through the joining process and so here is the link 😂 You can buy me a coffee if you are enjoying the blog but don’t feel like you should, you can always pop in for real coffee if you are in the area 😁

Delphiniums in November 🤷‍♀️ unseasonably warm weather we are having 🙄

Sunday: I spent the first part of the morning hoovering and polishing and then cutting some flowers for drying. I am running out of hanging space again 🤪 John was busy getting the last bit of the pathway concreted, it is now a lovely level, smooth path rather than the broken wonky one that was there before 😁 I also got everything ready for a roast dinner later before popping out to the garden centre to look for something specific. We called into see my brother and sister in law for a cuppa on the way home and then once back it was time to get the dinner going including a self saucing gluten free chocolate pudding. I wasn’t sure this was actually going to come out as it should so I also poached some pears in a vanilla syrup as a back up plan 😂 It did work out fine and so I sent some of the pears home with Charlie and kept a couple for myself for tomorrow 🥰

That is another week gone 🙄 Have a great week ahead x

Posted in Friesland Farm

Cooler mornings and evenings, slow cooking & bulb planting.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 12th September 2022: After last week who knows what this week will bring but one thing it’s already brought is rain! Seriously 😐 months of drought and high temperatures and then wham rain, rain, rain, when is a girl supposed to get the washing dry 🤷‍♀️ We had a dry day yesterday, that’s the first day for over a week that the washing hasn’t gone out, come in and gone out again 🤪 I was hoping to get some of the bigger stuff washed and dried before winter but at this rate I won’t succeed.

Mid morning and I am sitting down for a coffee, I already have the dinner on, two batches in the slow cookers 😁 One is chicken stew and one is chicken korma, if I am making dinner for this evening I might as well make bigger batches and then freeze some portions for another day, all part of my cost saving drive. I read an interesting article this morning, it appears that Mr Putin (and I don’t know him so I can’t confirm lol) was hoping to freeze Europe into submission over Ukraine this winter by turning off the gas. His thinking, I guess, is that we are so reliant on it that we would have no choice but to let him have his way. It has had the opposite effect and apparently European businesses have shaved a whopping 22% off their energy needs 👏 If that can be achieved collectively for the domestic consumption as well then it would definitely be a two fingered salute in his direction. So as well as helping your bank balance you can also help in the effort of standing up to a bully by tweaking your own energy consumption wherever possible 🥰

The next two jobs on my list, we’ll they were not on the list but they needed doing, were to clean and tidy the boot room and the pantry. They have both become dumping grounds over the summer and it was time to sort them out, put things away, hoover, clean and tidy. I needed the pantry floor area cleared so that I could get into the apple rack to store apples for the winter 😁 I have some lovely apples and still more to pick as they become ripe and I want to store them for as long as possible. Each one will be individually wrapped in paper and stored in the racks, they will be checked over each week and any that are spoiling will get used quickly. The carrots will also be stored in there, I have tried storing them in sand but they end up rubbery so some will get chopped and frozen and then the ones in the pantry will get used up first over the next couple of months.

I have a very long list of jobs to get through but I feel I have made a great start this morning, let’s hope I can keep it going 😂

Onto cleaning hoovering and cleaning the kitchen, smashing a milk bottle while I was in the process 🙄 then hoovering the sitting room. While I was doing that I had the top half of the stable door open and when I went back into the kitchen I had been invaded, by flies. Urgh there were approx 30/40 of them buzzing round so I closed all the blinds and curtains and opened the windows, by now they were in the sitting room too. They head for the light but once behind the fabric can’t find their way out again, that was the idea anyway, eventually after about an hour and a half I had managed to get rid of all but two or three persistent little buggers. I had a flurry of enquiries about flower bouquets so I will be quite busy with those over the next two days, I am hoping the rain holds off although I have done the washing Hokey Cokey again today 🤪

The weather tomorrow looks shockingly wet across the country and so I cut flowers tonight for two lots going out tomorrow. After eating our dinner we went out to the yearly local fair, Witney Feast, we have been going every year for over 40 years and only missed a couple for various reasons. We no longer go on the rides 😂 but love walking round and soaking up the atmosphere of a big fair. This one goes back over 700 years ‘Witney Feast started in 1243 when King Henry III granted two deer from the Royal Forest of Wychwood to celebrate the rededication of the church’ Over those hundreds of years it has changed from feasting to selling livestock and wares and these days it is adrenaline pumping rides, flashing lights and traditional hook a duck stalls as well as food stands which used to be just fish and chips or sweets and now includes all types of fast food. It is the point in the year that John always says ‘that’s it, Witney Feast is here and so is Winter’ 😂 The fair moves onto Chipping Norton after it’s two days at Witney and becomes the ‘Chippy Mop’ which was a hiring fair in origin also dating back hundreds of years. I love that these events like so many others have been happening for that long, all part of the rich history and traditions of our country 🥰 The rain didn’t come.

Tuesday: No sign of the rain yet but I don’t doubt it will arrive at some point today 🤪 After getting the eggs sorted and out I cut some more flowers and foliage, I did some dead heading and I cut a few bits for drying as well. Next job was to batch up and freeze the food I made yesterday and then think about todays food 🙄 While I was in the freezer I found a lamb bone from a past roast so that went into the slow cooker along with various veg, it will make a nourishing soup for today. I also decided to give a pudding a go in the other slow cooker, I found a recipe and loosely followed it 😬 It was a basic sponge mix (but without egg, interesting to see how that works out) milk was added as per the recipe to create a batter. Grease the slow cooker dish pour in the batter (thickish) put chopped apple all over the top of the sponge, drizzle a couple of teaspoons of honey over those and sprinkle cinnamon (I used nutmeg instead) I also sprinkled a dash of lime juice for added flavour. No idea how it will turn out 🤷‍♀️ I will let you know but it does mean I am free to get on with the rest of my day 🥰

Wednesday: I spent the morning costing up and ordering for the wreath making evenings, finalising all the details of dates and time plus terms and conditions and points to note. It looks like I will have to put a third night on as there is interest which is great. I now have to chivvy John up to get the ceiling sorted and make a cover for the pool table, I have ordered an oil cloth to go over the top of it all. The. I will need to get myself into gear to make up all the willow rings at some point but I made one up yesterday and covered it with moss and it looks great and certainly will make a good base for a wreath. I also went out and picked rose hips, stripped the thorns and placed them in a glycerine solution to keep them supple and hold the colour if possible. There will be quite a lot more to get done and organised but I am happy that it’s all going in the right direction. Mostly in the afternoon I had a sit down, as always I am usually researching or looking things up, you can never know enough 😂

Thursday: I took a chance and hung out some washing, I checked the rain radar and nothing of any great amount is showing up even though it looks like it might rain at any minute. I spent an hour or more cutting flowers, these are for jam jars going out tomorrow, mostly stems that are too short or flowers that need cutting to let others come on. I also cut a fair amount of cosmos which I had made up into a bunch to go out for sale.

Friday: Busy morning, busy afternoon, then lost me mojo 🙄 I can’t remember what I did first thing but sometime in the morning I cleared two raised beds and planted a lot of bulbs. There were 80 bridal crown narcissi, 25 gladioli, approx 30 fritillary and 25 allium, I have a lot more to plant but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Some of them will go into pots to sell in flower next spring and some will go into the ornamental beds as well. Oh I remember what it was I did first of all, fetching the willow whips I cut down at the beginning of the year, I tidied them up by cutting off any branching bits (putting them to one side) and then sorted them into sizes. I need to soak them in order to make willow wreaths with them, some of the smaller branches I cut off were supple enough to have a go at making mini willow wreaths so I made a couple of those as well as a fresh willow one to see how well that worked. In the afternoon I did a fair bit of dried flower work, I have been making dried flower broomsticks in various sizes as I thought they would be nice for October. Then I revamped my two dried flower wreaths, I always keep the Christmas wreath bases and dry them out, they can then be used in a number of ways including dried flower wreaths. I have used the flowers that were for Sam’s wedding so that’s a nice keepsake 🥰 I tidied up and then lost my mojo, no idea where it went but it’s definitely gone 🤪

Saturday: Busy morning, I started off in the big tunnel clearing away dead stuff, the cucumbers are struggling and I think I have enough tomatoes to last me a year 😂 so they got cleared but it was sunny and became a bit hot in there. I then went onto planting up loads of plants into the front shrub bed, I also planted lots of bulbs. Meanwhile John was putting up the ceiling in the pool room, it was insulated when he did it but needed boarding over the top and as that is where I will be doing the wreath evening, I wanted him to get on and finish it in plenty of time. I cut flowers this morning for a birthday tomorrow and made up a bunch of dried flowers for a birthday. Talking of birthdays it is Sam’s today, they have taken the caravan away for the weekend but not too far so I went with Shelley, Josh and Flo plus a cake and we met them at the campsite. We had a lovely couple of hours, the kids went out on their little boat on the river and then we got a lift back to the car via the river. It was lovely and serene on the water and a great way to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon. John stayed home to get on with the ceiling, he also cut the lawn and did the chickens, I should go out more often he gets more done when I am not here 😂

It’s definitely chillier in the mornings and evenings but the sun in the daytime is still pretty warm.

The wreath evenings are booking up and I am certainly looking forward to doing them, I collected some gorgeous red Virginia creeper today and have put it in glycerine to see if it holds its colour, I also collected ash keys to see if they will too.

Sunday: Not a terribly productive day today, food shopping, round to Mums for a coffee on the way back. Then a trip to the garden centre to find they didn’t have what I wanted so we went to a different garden centre, still couldn’t find it so came home empty handed (I know 🤪) Sat down and ordered it online instead 🙄 Had an easy afternoon watching a very old film 😂 cooked and ate dinner, John washed up while I got some flowers ready. That’s it! Some days you just have to slow down a little 😁

Still no rain.

Have a lovely week, I am sure we will all be watching the state funeral, big occasion. I hope they have excellent security in place, nothing like having all the major heads of countries in one place for someone to try for a new world order 😬

Posted in Friesland Farm

RIP HRH Queen Elizabeth II 😔

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Tuesday 6th September 2022: I didn’t blog yesterday as I was still at Sam and Luke’s looking after the children until around 6pm, I called in to see Charlie, Macca and Oscar on the way home. We eventually got back in time to get some dinner on, John did the birds and the egg collecting and then an evening of sitting down. It is getting dark much earlier now but I quite like that, it means you actually get some time off rather than continually working. We have one heck of a storm last night, thunder so loud and plenty of lightening to go with it plus very heavy rain, I am not complying I love a good storm plus I am loving the rain 🥰 I was watching the live lightening strike map as it was going on and it covered a huge area of Europe as well as the UK, thousands of strikes, incredible.

This morning we got up and down the usual jobs, John went off to work and I went out into the greenhouse to plant up some plants and sow some seeds. The plants are from the rudbeckia I have already growing, they send out runners under ground and then little plantlets appear, I dug those up the other day put them in some water and this morning potted them up, they will probably go out for sale once established. Then it was onto sowing some ‘snaps’ snapdragon or antirrhinum in various colours, also some white marigolds and a few cornflowers. All in seed trays to bring on over winter, I have still got plenty to direct sow as well. I tidied up the greenhouse a little while I was in there and then inside to do a bit of paperwork. The rain has started again lol same old thing, once it starts…..

The looming energy crisis is a hot topic at the minute and I am trying to look at all angles to see how well we will do. Financially we will manage but that doesn’t mean to say that we shouldn’t be doing all we can to keep the costs down. I read that many people are batch cooking now before the costs go up so that they can just reheat food which makes a lot of sense. I have thought a lot about how I will be doing g the cooking as the oven uses a lot of electric to heat up so slow cooker, microwave and induction hob will be used as much as possible instead. Potentially two slow cookers, one for dinner, one for pudding 😁 they use only as much energy as a light bulb so it makes sense to cook that way. Tiered steamer pans are also a great saver as are microwave steam bags, they work brilliantly. One of the problems that has caught my attention is the possibility of blackouts, this might seems very 1970’s (to anyone old enough to remember the strikes) but the UK producers approx 40% of its energy needs, 30% is bought from Norway. That leaves a shortfall of 30% that we will have to buy from other sources, the problem is that because of the Russian pipelines being closed, all other countries that need it will also be trying to buy it from elsewhere. Two potential problems arise, a price bidding war and a shortage. Europe has already warned of potential blackouts, our government has not but the energy sector is talking about it and so it makes sense to prepare. If the preparations are not needed it doesn’t matter but if they are then I am ready for it. To be fair when we switched over to all electric I prepared then because we do have at least 5 power cuts every winter 🙄 so I bought a small camping gas stove and canisters so that we could still boil a kettle and cook something warming. I do have battery powered lights we can use indoors and we have always have powerful torches for use outside if needed. I just need to make sure we have our thermals to hand and some big blankets 😂 you never know when you will need them 🤪 We have thermal door curtains already which come out in the colder months but I am thinking of getting thermal curtain linings or some material to make some for the the bedroom windows, I figure every little will help this year but in all honesty it’s probably something we should have already been doing before.

I sat down for a couple of hours at lunchtime and got a few things done that made me feel productive, it’s raining outside so might as well get on inside. I looked up thermal curtains etc but in the end I decided to order the material and make the linings myself 🤪 as if I don’t have enough jobs on the to do list already. I did a few bits of paperwork, I say paperwork it’s mostly digital these days but they are done ✔️ I ordered a rug for the spare room, the floor really needs doing in there but I doubt we will get it done before winter so a rug will help with any draughts hopefully. I also ordered a second slow cooker, I a, definitely going down this route lol. I need to write John a list of winter ready jobs, mostly just small ones but they will make a difference

Wednesday: A sunny start so I got the morning jobs done and then out into the garden. First job was to cut flowers for my weekly customers flowers and then into the small tunnel to do plenty of cutting back. Some of the cosmos was beginning to get powdery mildew so I cut them right back and removed the foliage, the flowers went into my collecting bucket and will be used for jam jar flowers. Then onto the big tunnel where I did much the same, though there is no mildew in there the plants were getting big and flopping over onto other plants. I watered the cucumbers and peppers plus fed and watered the flowers and then picked lbs and lbs of tomatoes 😂 plus courgettes, peppers and cucumbers. Inside then to sort all the produce out, weigh it and put some of it out for sale. Then whizz up the tomato sauce I made in the slow cooker yesterday and bag it ready to go in the freezer. Sit down at 1pm for a rest, the heavens opened and right at this minute there is a heavy downpour. It hasn’t really stopped since the drought was broken by the first lot of rain 😂 it is a doubled edged sword because we really need the rain but it would be good to have a dry day inbetween so I can get stuff done. I did also put 200, yes 200 ranunculus tubers to soak, what was I thinking, 200 🤪 I have to find somewhere to plant all of those 😝

Thursday: Last night I went to flower club, totally got my weeks mixed up, not surprising really, I thought it was last week but no it was this week. It was competition week and at 6pm I did think is there anything I can do in the next hour to submit, in the end I thought nope just leave it this time 🤪 John dropped me off as he always does, he went round to Shelley’s to drop off some tomatoes and stopped for a cuppa. He made his way back to ours at dusk, he turned into the downs road which is the lane that connects to ours (about 2 1/2 miles long) he had only driven a short distance along the lane when he thought, oh my god! A little way ahead of him he saw an animal come out of the hedge on one side of the lane, take two bounds and disappear into the hedge on the other side. This is not unusual as we regularly see deer, foxes, badgers, owls, rabbits etc but this appeared to be a big cat 😯 Sadly we don’t have a dash cam but he said it was as tall as an Alsatian, long in the body, black and had the unmistakable rear end of a cat. There have been several sightings in the area over the past couple of months and I have heard first hand from someone else who has seen it in their paddock a few miles from us 🙄 He drove down the lane on the way to collect me later and then we both drove down together on the way home but no more sightings. Internet chatter suggests that because of the drought there have been far more sightings than usual throughout the country, I guess they were looking for water just like all the other wild animals, I may put the wildlife camera up and see what we get.

This morning I have been busy in the kitchen and doing the washing line Hokey Cokey, each time I put it out it rains so I get it back in, at the minute I have given up 😂 I have done a fair bit of batch cooking, I bought a second slow cooker so that I can have two lots going at the same time. Today I have mince,veg and potato in one and I have a spag Bol sauce in the other, that was bulked out with mushrooms, peppers and a tin of salad beans and I used the sauce I made yesterday. Johns was bulked out with plenty of veg including spinach and half a tin of baked beans I opened last night for dinner. Each batch had half a portion of mince in and I think I will get around 5/6 portions from the mince meal and 4/5 portions from the spag Bol meal. Apart from what we eat tonight the rest will be batched and labelled and into the freezer for another day. I then peeled and chopped a load of cooking apples and stewed those down with some blackberries and sugar and I made up a batch of crumble topping. The topping I pre cooked spread out on oven trays and then once the apple mix was cooled and batched up I sprinkled the crumble mix on top. My thinking behind this is that I will be able to get those out of the freezer and because it’s precooked it will only need reheating, saving me time, energy and money. While I did have the oven on to toast the topping I also made a cake and cooked that as well which will also be frozen until needed. I made a batch of chutney with the tomatoes and apples as I have plenty of those, a couple of courgettes some wrinkly grapes, brown sugar, malt vinegar, chopped ginger, onions and some mixed spice went into the mix as well 😁 The cake was a bit of a use it up cake, I had some caramel sauce to use up so I made up a general mix without sugar, added the sauce and some apples and it appears to have baked well, hopefully it will taste ok too. We are not really in the position where we will be worrying about the energy bill too much (I may spit feathers when I see the next bill mind you) but I love a challenge and we should all be more energy conscious no matter what the price of it is shouldn’t we? So I am aiming to trim the costs however I can and batch cooking and baking is definitely one way of doing it. Having two slow cookers is something I should have done years ago I think 😂 because John and I eat totally different things it is much easier to do big batches for each of us at the same time. The above is one example but I am also thinking that while John loves a good stew I prefer a curry or korma so I can do both now plus once it’s all prepped and in I have the rest of the day to get on with other things 🥰

Tomato and apple chutney 🥰

As I sit down to type this up, our Queen has been taken ill and they are concerned for her health, the family is travelling to Balmoral to see her so it’s not looking good. I think even people who are not royalists nevertheless have a deep respect for Her Majesty, for her total dedication to a position she didn’t expect to inherit and one that she has unfalteringly carried out through thick and thin all these years.

Early evening we had the news that we hoped wasn’t coming but in reality we knew it was 😢 HRH Queen Elizabeth II has died peacefully at Balmoral Castle. That is the end of an era, the 2nd Elizabethan Era, it’s pretty profound, we have a new King, King Charles III. The devotion and dedication that The Queen gave to the position that she held was unfaltering and that alone deserves huge respect, what an incredible woman, dignified and constant, a great example to us all. RIP Your Majesty, you will be deeply missed not only by your family but by millions of people around the world. Long Live The King 🇬🇧

Friday: I still feel pretty emotional this morning, it is just sinking in, the magnitude of the event on our historic timeline. When I started blogging it was to diarise the events of our life in a new adventure on a Smallholding, the good things that happened and the bad. Over the years it has included major world events and so it really has become a snapshot of life in the 21st century.

This morning I cut some flowers for jam jars later today, it was drizzling, the rain hasn’t really stopped since last Thursdays break in the drought conditions 😂 The poor flower heads are hoping for a dry day tomorrow as we are forecast sharp showers today and more often than not this week they have come with thunder and lightening. You couldn’t write this stuff, months of no rain, burning temperatures and then straight into torrential downpours and storms 🤷‍♀️

I batched up and got everything in the freezer, I also made a bath of dumplings yesterday which I open froze and they have now gone into a bag to use whenever we have a good stew. Stews and soups are a staple over the winter for us, they are wholesome and warming plus cooking in the slow cooker means I can get on with other things.

Saturday: I spent a lot of the day with my apple picker getting cooking apples from the tree, there are so many 😂 I have been giving plenty of them away. Shelley came over with Josh and Flo and we picked some blackberries and then after they left I went and picked a whole load more. There are loads down in the back paddock and it was so peaceful and quiet, I just have to do something with them all now. I also want to get some elderberries picked and some rose hips to make the syrups which are great for winter, rose hip for coughs and sore throats, elderberries for colds and boosting energy.

Sunday: More picking today, eating apples and pears today as well as digging up some carrots and collecting a few more mulberries. Mum and Ken came over with bags to pick elderberries, I sent them in the direction of the blackberries as well, they also went home with windfall pears, cooking apples and some carrots. Charlie and Macca called in with Oscar, they had been out blackberry picking so I also sent them down to the paddock to get more blackberries and elderberries. To add to their haul were carrots and beetroot that Charlotte had sown back in the summer and they also had some pears and cooking apples. It’s a fabulous time of year and there is plenty to go round, I have been giving away loads of cooking apples but I still have more than I really know what to do with or indeed have time to process. Tomorrow I have pears, cooking apples and carrots to either process for freezing or wrapping for storing, I also want to get some batch cooking done in the slow cookers, chicken this time. John meanwhile has been digging up the ground 🙄 the IBC tanks won’t fit how we would have liked them to so we have had to rethink. While he was exploring his options he decided to re-route the drainage pipe that runs a cross the back of the hard standing. It makes sense because it collects run off rain water and goes off at a 45 degree angle, when it gets blocked this makes it difficult to rod so he decided to straighten it which meant digging out the concrete. For someone who complains about the amount of jobs there are to do he has done a great job of making himself more work 😂

It’s the end of another week but not just any old week, in just one week we have had a wedding, a new Prime Minister, a big cat sighting, the death of The Queen and a new King on the Throne. The mood of the country is double edged. Sorrow for the loss of a very much loved Sovereign who did her duty with total dedication for 70 years and was working right up to the end of her 96 years. Relief and happiness that King Charles III has taken up his rightful position. I don’t know about anyone else but that time in between the announcement of the Queens passing and the address to the nation from King Charles seemed very strange, almost as if I needed to see him to know all would be well and that someone was at the helm of the realm. It would take a whole blog on its own for me to explain how I feel about having a Monarchy, I know not everyone is as enthusiastic but for me it’s a rich tapestry of intricately woven threads forming a scene over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. The traditions, protocol and ceremonies are so old they seem archaic but I like that, it’s some of those rich threads forming a links with the past. I think there are a few Royals at the forefront that are fantastic ambassadors for our country and do far more good than harm. And then there are those who are either completely stupid or self obsessed and don’t have the grace and dignity it takes 🙄 I feel that generally the country is behind King Charles and wishing him the best at such a time of loss, I know I certainly am 🥰 As we leave the second Elizabethan age and move into the Carolean age we can look back with fondness and look forward with hope and what could be better than that?

Have a lovely week x

Posted in Friesland Farm

A busy week, harvesting and processing & the reason for the busy week 🥰

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Thursday: Yes it’s Thursday before I even realised I hadn’t written a single thing for the blog 🤣 Thats because I ha e been so busy I haven’t even had time to think about it at all.

Most of the early week was wall to wall blue sky and it was pretty hot so that meant the usual scrabble round in the mornings and get done what I could outside. Picking and some watering, all the usual feeding, watering, cleaning out jobs. I did remember to take some photos mind you so something ran through my mind at least 🙄

This time of year is very busy with picking and harvesting and prepping everything ready for the winter, mostly chopping and freezing but it takes up a fair amount of time. I have made a couple of soup bags up as well, I was really happy with this one as it was very colourful.

Runner beans, tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, onion, garlic chives and celery leaves, should make a tasty, healthy soup in mid winter 🥰

This morning I picked some elderberries but I had to wash them and freeze them as I dont have time at the minute to make some syrup which is what I want to do with them. I also chopped up windfall apples and bagged and froze those. I cooked sweetcorn in the microwave, still in the husk, which is a fab way to do them. When they are done, cut the bottom off and peel of the leaves, easy and quick. I then vacuum packed these so they will last a long time in the freezer without getting frosted. I still have not quite got fully to grips with the vacuum sealer but I am getting the hang of it and it’s a great gadget. I weighed up the pros and cons of the fact that it uses plastic but it does keep the food in a better quality for longer and I can always re use the bags for smaller quantities another time.

This weeks blog will be short and sweet as I have forgotten to do half of it and I will not be around to do the other half of it 😜 We have Charlie’s hen weekend this weekend, so Friday I will be busy getting ready for that and then the weekend itself. John will be in charge here, I will be enjoying myself 😁

Friday: An unbelievable coincidence has occurred and I am very excited about it. My neighbour messaged me this morning about a watercolour she had seen on another site, she recognised it instantly and blow me down if it wasn’t our paddock with the old hen huts in and Jack grazing. It is beautiful and in a style I love. I am in touch with the artist, he has agreed to sell it to us and it should be here shortly, so chuffed, it’s brilliant and I love it so it will go for framing and hang in my kitchen 😁 Happy Days 😁

By the time this is published on Sunday eve, Charlie will know all about her hen do so I can safely write this on Friday 😜 The reason I can’t write much about the Smallholding is because this week especially we have been working absolutely flat out to organise a hen do extraordinaire, I asked ‘can we do this’ the reply was ‘with bells on’ and so we have pulled off a boho bell tent, hen do village, with a hundred and one little touches that Charlie will hopefully love, everything we have organised and arranged was with her love of these things in mind 🥰 no doubt there will be plenty of pictures coming up very soon. High fives 🙌 to everybody who helped, spending hours with planning and building the hen weekend, you are bloody awesome 🤩

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Snow! A hair cut & Mint jelly 🥰

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Monday 12th April 2021: WTAF!

Woke up to snow, not just a few flakes but more than we have had in the wintertime 😂 As if this past year hasn’t been crazy enough 😜

John was up, fed and let out the birds and gone to work by 8am this morning, he should be back by lunchtime. I had the Rayburn lit by 8.30, not because it’s particularly cold, I always think it feels warmer with snow on the ground, but more because it will be soggy which means we will get soggy. Soggy gloves, hats, coats, and so it is useful to have somewhere to dry everything and warm up hands and feet when we get back inside.

I have so far only done the indoor bits and pieces but I need to get outside and bring the torts back in. They must wonder the heck is going on, they have already been digging themselves into the ground at night but of course the day time (especially if the sun comes out) they are wandering around. I left them because I kept thinking, it will warm up today, ha, so I give up and will put them back indoors.

Today we also get more freedoms in the form of non essential shops opening including hairdressers, barbers, salons and outside eating and pub gardens😂 What a day for it to snow, I feel sorry for those businesses that have waited all this time to wake up to a blanket of snow this morning, it was bad enough that it is colder than average and certainly much, much colder than this time last year! We should be having warm spring sunshine and be able to comfortably sit outside having some refreshments 🤷‍♀️

Just sat down for a quick break after cleaning the spare room, I have come to the conclusion (again 😂) that I have too much stuff. We make extra storage to store stuff we hardly, if ever, use, what is that all about. I hate to get rid of it though, you never know when you will need it 😜 In all seriousness I do need to find new homes for a lot of it, now the charity shops are open again at least I can take stuff there, someone else might be able to make use of some of it. Whatever ‘it’ is ai need to go through it all and thin it all out.

The next electric radiator has just arrived eeeek, I am looking forward to this one because it’s for the kitchen which means that on chilly mornings it should be warmer in there than it is when I haven’t lit the Rayburn 🥰

Time seems to be passing slowly today I don’t know why, maybe because I have been cleaning and they say time passes quickly when you are having fun so the opposite must be true too 😜

Tuesday: Totally different day today, cold start but the sun is shining and it’s quite warm 🥰 John has gone to work again today but did the animals before leaving. I spent the first couple of hours indoors sorting out some of the ‘stuff’ and also taking up a pair of curtains to hang in the spare room. Then outside to get on with the jobs of the day, first off the water buckets, it was frozen this morning when John went to do them. Another reason for getting the indoor stuff done first, by the time I go out pipes have thawed and it’s warmed up a bit. I water the plants growing in the tunnels, cut a couple of bunches of rhubarb but most of the time I spent in the greenhouse sowing seeds. This morning it was runner beans, dwarf French beans and sweetcorn as well as pricking out some echinops for the flower beds. I feel like I am really behind, I say that every year but I still have work to do on some of the beds as they are not ready for planting yet although it won’t take long I am still aware that they are on the todo list. A bit of weeding in the front flower beds and then inside to get the washing up done and a quick sit down before I get a haircut yay 😁

Hair cut done ✅ after a spot of lunch it was back outside to try to gain some ground, which I feel I have done. I have planted the peas and the mangetout, I just have a few pea left to find a space for, I also planted and covered two rows of beetroot (chigoya, stripey) and two rows of swede. The root veg I have sown in multi crop blocks which basically means more than one seed in each sowing, they like it apparently and you thin out later once they are swelling up. Each sowing was watered in with some organic plant food and hopefully they will get going pretty quickly. Most of the peas were sown outside, four rows, but two rows I have sown in the poly tunnel. I am hoping I will get an earlier drop from these, if I don’t and it fails at least the compost they are in will get some goodness from the nitrogen nodules. I figured that the tomatoes won’t be going in for a while and even then will take a while to get big enough to out grow the peas so we will see what happens. I also had some more broad beans left over so I have planted them next to the swede, might as well mix it up a little and see what results we get.

Wednesday: Not such a cold start this morning g and the sun was already out first thing. I whizzed round and did the indoors stuff before going outside around 9.30. Watering the veg I planted yesterday and then some pricking out of dill and coriander. Onto hoeing the onion bed and one of the asparagus beds. John came home at lunch time and we popped to the shops to get a few bits, it was manic, I had forgotten what it was like when everybody in the whole world was out shopping 😩 busy, manic, everyone fighting for a car parking space, queues, bring back lockdown 😂

Thursday: Still cold for the time of year and so I am holding off a few jobs, besides the fact it’s chilly to work outside unless you have a job that keeps you warm, the ground is too cold to plant much. Likewise I can’t move things on in the greenhouse because what would normally now move to the bench is still on a heat mat 🙄

We haven’t done much today, John has done a bit of tidying up, the wood store is now empty and John has cleared the ground ready to put the tractor in there, that will free up a bay in the hay barn, for what I don’t know yet. I have pottered about doing not much really, Charlie came over and bought lunch with her, it’s her birthday today so we had lunch outside but it was a tad cold when the sun went behind the clouds. Sam and the kids came over in the afternoon and the kids played with bubbles, a piece of board on the ground (jumping up and down) and the wheelbarrow, who needs expensive toys 😂

Friday: Temps are about a degree warmer than yesterday and for an hour at least this morning the sun was glorious, unfortunately it disappeared and as yet has not reappeared but the chilly wind has dropped and so it feels much better today. John went to work and I spent my time in the garden after going round and doing the water buckets which were frozen when John tired to do them first thing. In the greenhouse I am still waiting to be able to move things along but the constant cold nights mean I won’t chance it yet. I pot on some of the cucumber plants and the courgettes so at least something is happening. I have also sown some more flower seeds, rudbeckia and lupin, they will go out for sale once they are big enough. On the garden itself I have done some weeding, well that’s mostly all I did, weeding lol. I put out a couple more plants for sale but as yet it’s too cold to put some of the others out so they will have to wait a while longer.

Before coming in for a sit down at 3pm I picked some purple sprouting for dinner later and had a quick look at the asparagus which is just starting to appear above ground but not big enough to cut yet.

I have seen the forecast for next week the temps are going to climb nicely and then plummet with an artic blast again! I think I am just going to have to go ahead as best I can with planting up and moving on then try to protect the plants as best as possible and see what happens. I can always start sowing some more just in case the first lot get affected and if they don’t then I can sell the second lot of sowings when they get bigger. If I keep waiting will be at the end of the season before we know it lol, a difficult year but then every year seems to have its challenges nowadays.

Saturday: The weather looks promising today, despite a frosty start there is wall to wall blue sky. Today was one of those days when you have a plan and probably shouldn’t have bothered 🙄 A job that should have been first thing and 10 mins didn’t get completed until midday for various reasons. Last night I cooked up bramley apples and mint along with some cider vinegar to make mint jelly, that all went well and I left it overnight to strain hoping to get it boiled and jarred up first thing. I had just got the sugar in and dissolved when BT arrived and almost at the same time Martin, Josh and Flo called in to see us. As I always say, everything stops for grandchildren and so I set the pan aside to return to it later once they had gone. We had coffee outside and played with the kids, all the while the BT man is checking equipment. He goes off at some point believing he has detected this elusive fault. Martin and the children leave so I go back inside and get the pan back on the boil only it has developed a skin which I skimmed off first (I think it was from the vinegar) The engineer returns as I am carefully watching the mixture boil and get up to temperature, I barely look at him when he is telling me, he thinks that is now sorted and I shouldn’t have any more problems, yep I have heard that one before 😂 He leaves and I carry on until I am happy I will get a set and then put it into jars than have not been in the oven sterilising for over two hours 😜 Job done I go outside to get started out there as I haven’t had a chance to do that as yet. I go into the orchard to started getting water for the Guineas, quail, Turkey and light Sussex, only to find the water is not coming out of the tap, that means a leak somewhere. I go back into the garden and can hear it pouring out of the main tap, it has been going a while as the paddock has a slick of water across it 🥴 Luckily just as I discovered it, John, who had popped to the shop for some milk, returned, there were three joints in total that had popped off from the freeze thaw process 🙄 Once we got those sorted and I may say it wasn’t without incident as John lost one of the washers down a hole in the ground (yeah I know, you couldn’t make this stuff up) I finished getting the water buckets etc sorted and then it was onto watering some of the veg plants I have planted recently. It is not as bad as it was this time last year when we had record high temps and no rain for weeks but this year it’s cold and no rain for weeks 🤷‍♀️ always a situation to overcome, hopefully it will all be fine in the end and we will get veg!

Mint jelly, not quite as clear as I would have liked and I forgot to turn it when it was part set so the mint bits are all at the top but it will still be delicious 😋 The jelly you buy in the shop will have green food colouring added to it to make it more appealing 🙄 this is the colour it actually should be 😀

I checked the greenhouse and opened the vents, all seems well in there so there was nothing to be getting on with. I came in for a cuppa around 1.30 and did a bit of researching of various plants, we will watch Prince Phillips funeral later this afternoon though John is annoyed as the snooker is starting as well but I have already bagged the tv 😋

Sunday: Lovely day, sunshine, warm fabulous. Today is the first anniversary of the passing of Dad and so tinged with a little sadness, but not too much as there are so many things I remember that make me smile or laugh. I often wondered when people said they think of them every day, how that was possible but it really is, in the littlest things you catch yourself thinking about a chuckle or a ‘wise word’ or just the appreciation he would have had for something like a good home cooked dinner. We went to the grave and gave him a toast with his favourite tipple, had a little sing song and a jig, he would have loved that 😂

For the best part of the day I have not done much other than clean out the Guineas and a trip to the garden centre and a visit to my brother for a cuppa on the way over. I attempted to do something about one part of the veg bed that I had turned over to wildlife, it needs sorting but apart from pulling out nettles I abandoned the job, I will get back to it at some point but not today. John meanwhile has been doing the usual jobs, feeding, watering, egg collecting. He did start the very last raised bed at the side in the driveway, until I pulled him away to go to the garden centre that is but he didn’t offer up much objection to abandon tools 😜

Early evening I went out and checked the greenhouse to make sure everything was alright and then I watered the herb bed. It is so dry that nothing is really bursting into life like it should be at this time of year. There are a couple of plants I want to lfit and so giving them a soaking will help immensely when I go out in the morning to dig them up and move them.

I can’t quite believe that right at the very beginning of this week we had a covering of snow and now the days are bright, sunny and warm lol. I think we have a few more days of warm weather before it gets cold again 🙄 not sure how long that will last but these things are sent to try us and they certainly do!

Posted in Friesland Farm

Surprise! Mid week interlude 😀

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I thought I would do a quick round up of the photos of produce I took over the 2020 growing season in date order so you can see how the year progressed. I love how vibrant the colours all are and can’t wait to start harvesting again this year. What I really should do is weigh everything to see exactly how much I get, the photos represent probably 1/2 of what I actually harvest so it would be interesting to have an accurate record.

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Scotch eggs, Jumble crumble and Catherine Parr.

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Monday 27th August, Bank Holiday Monday 😀 only thing is for us it is just another day lol, John has actually gone to work today to catch up with all the plumbing before he has the week off next week when his phoned will be switched off for a fortnight 😜

Dry this morning after yesterday’s downpours, the temps are still fairly low though, it’s all or nothing in a temperate climate like ours, I said to John yesterday wouldn’t it be nice to have steady weather lol.

I must just show you a picture of these, I bought them home from the picnic yesterday, Home made scotch eggs made by my Auntie Louie, I can tell you they are delish, which is why I didn’t hesitate to have the leftovers 😀 One day I will get round to making some and hope they taste this good.

I fed the orchard birds and the rabbits have had hay, apples, pears and plums today, we have started a week of worming the birds in order to get them in top top condition going into the Winter, a fair few of them are in a moult so I need to get a spice mix made up as well to help with recovery. I make my own it’s cheaper than buy special tubs of it, I just buy the ingredients wholesale and mix it all, smells the same and a bit of a treat for them when the weather changes.

Just sat down for a coffee, it’s 11.30, I have been picking and prepping and processing 😀

John has got a one pot chicken dinner for tonight, basically everything goes in the pot at once and cooks in the oven, that’s it very easy and he likes it 😀 veg in there that I picked this morning, carrots, beans, broccoli, potatoes, some leftover chicken from yesterday, stock and cornflour, simple and tasty with all the fresh veg packing in the flavour. Then a jumble crumble, I just invented that, for pudding, which is a mix of blackberry, apples and plums, I was going to have scotch egg and salad but Macca and I ate them this morning 😝 thinking about it they make a very good breakfast on the go, egg, sausage and bread, I really need to get on and make some of these, I want to try them with the quail eggs as a small snack, maybe in the winter when I have more time. It’s surprising how much time everything takes to do, picking, prepping, blanching, freezing, no wonder we love Birds Eye (other frozen brands of veg are available 😆) really they are a working woman’s/mans saving grace and I have watched the process they really are very fresh when frozen, I see no shame in using them.

Tuesday: Dry again, did the orchard lot and a bit of tidying then I thought I better take a look at the mobile coop John is repairing. I did say to him last night that he needed to get it creosoted as time was ticking away and it needs at least a week or so to dry before the hens move in there. Personally I would have creosoted first then done the repairs as time is of the essence but it’s still sat there so I got the brush out and started the job especially in the nest box area. Then Mia arrived and that was the end of that job or any other for that matter lol.

When John came home we spent a couple of hours creosoting the chicken coop, him on the inside and me on the outside 😋

Tonight for dinner we had sea trout with a breadcrumb & pine nut crust which was delish and I take no credit for because Samatha made it before she went home, I need to get the exact ingredients off her so I can make it again.

Wednesday: Small amount of rain over night by the looks of it. Like a lot of people I sit and check my phone first thing in the morning, mostly to make sure there are no urgent messages and the to catch up with any goings on. This morning I had notification through from the neighbourhood watch scheme that another vehicle that was involved in poaching and ramming a game keeper just up the road has been caught and crushed, they caught one last week and they have crushed 5 in 3 weeks linked to rural crimes 😀 That’s a great result because rural crime is endemic round here and most rural areas feel the same I suspect. We are in a particularly affluent area and so it attracts those of a dubious nature from far and wide, and we are always on the alert for ‘strange or unusual’ behaviour. It’s funny how your senses become honed after a while and you can definitely get a feel for something that isn’t quite what it seems, you know instantly when a vehicle pulls in if it is a legitimate customer or not. Sometimes they are lost and that’s fine we can help them with that but sometimes they are up to no good and I have had to deal with this on a few occasions, mostly when you march out there and ask what they are doing they back off quickly, like the time they were rifling though our skip, and sometimes they are more persistent, luckily I had two egg customers with me when one lot were very shifty and not taking no for an answer, eventually we got rid of them, took the number plate and reported it to the police. So remember if you ever pull into a farm/rural gateway/driveway, to use the phone, have a smoke break, change the baby’s nappy (yep we have had that one too) that somebody will be clocking you and taking down your reg number 😋 of course if you are genuine that’s as far as it goes unless it’s a regular occurrence, and if you are not genuine you are probably not reading this anyway 🤪

Did the orchard lot and got a bale of straw from the hay barn to top up all the nest/housing boxes, filled up the rabbit ‘burrow’ etc as the night are getting a little chiller, now I have tiny bits of prickly straw all stuck in my clothing 😝

We have had notification of an increase in feed prices in September then another increase in October 😏 this means we will be putting up the price of the eggs. Demand for feed is going to be high, the yield was lower than usual and most farmers have used their Winter feed already due to the lack of rain and the heatwave over Summer, it is going to have a real knock on effect for food prices, the news said approx £7.50 per month for each household but I think it’s likely to be higher than that in the long run.

When Sam came back from work yesterday we set about taking down the fence at the side of the building and starting to clear the wood that is there. A couple of years ago we started taking down the huge conifers that are just inside the boundary fence, unfortunately we didn’t get round to doing all of them as the ground in front built up with felled limbs, then the grass grew over it all and it was just a mess which is really annoying. So we have begun to clear it, we have someone coming in next week to help John cut up and tidy it up so hopefully we will eventually reach our aim of getting all the trees down and opening up that side of the property to use as the main entrance to the yard at the back. At the moment we use the other driveway which goes right past the back door and curves around the building making it a bit difficult for deliveries such as hay and straw trailers, only taken us about 5 years so far 😝

Thursday: Dry but noticeably fresher, the past few mornings have been slightly warmer than this one however the Sun is already up and doing its thing. Shelley, Josh and Flo are coming over this morning to help with some jobs and I have the ideal one in mind for Josh as he loves to use the broom, the stones all need sweeping back from the drive onto the hardstanding area 😀

A friend dropped off a jar of honey that is produced in the village, so food miles are minimal, well for us not sure how far the bees fly 😜 I couldn’t resist dipping my finger in the jar, oh my, totally delicious 😋

Had a busy day all in all with the hoeing and sweeping and raking and tidying, Shelley picked and processed some runner beans as well and then it was time to go to yet another family birthday 😜 The only thing is at this time of year we always have to leave early (before the cake, much to Johns annoyance) because the chickens have to be shut in before foxy sniffs them out!

Friday: Another lovely early Autumnal morning which turned out to be very warm. Mum came over and set about clearing one side of the poly tunnel, the tomatoes have not been ripening properly and the leaves have gone funny, now I would say it’s blight but these have only ever been watered with mains water so I’m puzzled by that. Anyhow they might as well come out as I have plenty more growing in other places, not least the ‘extra’ plants I shoved in the ground outside which have done better than all the rest! Just goes to show that mollycoddling them isn’t necessary. Meanwhile I did some picking and also cutting back the herbs on the herb bed, later Mum dug up and divided the bee balm, Monarda, and replanted, potting up the other divisions to be planted elsewhere later in the year or maybe in the spring depending on how far I get with things.

Sam and Mia came over in the afternoon and I rested with Mia while Sam did some jobs, then we collected the eggs and did the feeding in the afternoon.

In the evening John and I went to babysit Josh and Florence while Mummy and Daddy went out for a couple of hours.

Saturday: Fresh and sunny this morning, I think it will be another very warm day, did the animals then John went off to sort his Mum out, I need to start getting sorted for our holiday next week as in between that Dad and Sue are coming to stay, they will be staying in Charlie’s room as her and Macca are away in Cyprus for a wedding 😀

I am really looking forward to getting away, more than most holidays in recent years, as soon as we get there it will be ‘and relax’ 🤪

Cut the grass in the driveway and had to wait to cut the lawn as it was pretty sunny out there, when I could do it, it was hard going because the bottom end had got long and thick, it’s the only grass in the place that has grown 😝 John carried on fixing the hen coop ready for delivery of hens next week, had to do some watering as it has got amazingly dry again. I have a resident frog in the big poly tunnel, goodness knows why he has set up in there but he has been there a couple of weeks now. In light of the fact that Mum cleared it yesterday and most of his cover has gone, I filled up a bowl of rain water, put a brick in it and another on the outside, found a piece of slate to cover it put it under the melon foliage and hopefully he will be very happy 😃 great slug eaters so I’m glad he is in there.

I strained the pear and spices in the vodka and now I just have infused alcohol, so I have added sugar and this will now go into a dark cupboard for a couple,e of months, the colour is wonderful, a bit like sherry, can’t wait to try it on a cold night.

Sunday: Another fresh but sunny morning no doubt temps will climb again today, after doing the morning bits and some bits round the house, I am going out for the day 😀 Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire has a Catherine Parr day and I am going with my Mum, Sister and Niece, a rare day off, Johns in charge 😝

We had a lovely very day and I thoroughly recommend a visit if you are in the area. I made a good discovery though as I was beginning to think that all the work here was what was causing problems with my feet and hands but nope, even on a day out without any work my feet/ankles swelled and hurt and my hand, not really sure where that gets me but at least I know and can report this to the consultant next week.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Apples, pears, plums and a whole load of other stuff.

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Monday 20th August: I’m thinking that maybe we should have opening times for the egg shed as last night someone arrived at 7.45pm expecting there to still be eggs available!

A dull but warm morning so after the orchard animals were sorted and I went round checking for randomly laid duck eggs I decided to plant the sambucus nigra which is a black elderflower tree, it has beautiful pink flowers in the spring which make pink elderflower champagne 😀 I want to get it in the ground while there is still some growing time to be had, it’s going in the front yard area to cast a bit of shade by the gateway so that I can stand and chat to customers lol. I dug the first spadeful of dirt out and low and behold a chicken appears, they are fast when they think there are worms to be had, sadly this is a hard area and no worms to be seen. I got it the ground and put some rotted muck in the hole to give it a bit of a boost and then cut some mesh to go around the base to stop the chickens scratching up the loose dirt and exposing the roots otherwise it won’t do very well at all.

Next job was to weed killer the ménage as it has got a bit out of control and with it overcast it’s an ideal time, some of the taller weeds I hand pulled, two barrow loads, and as it looked like the sun was going to come out I then got on with spraying the rest. I can’t use the weed burner in there because of the wood chip, it would be a blazing inferno! Would you bloody coco it though, it seemed like the sun was going to come out and then when I had finished (about an hour) it started to drizzle, now, I need about a 2 hour clearance on this so I’m not a happy bunny ☹️ When you want rain, nothing, when you don’t want it……🌧

I have been busy planning what veg to grow over winter, onions, broad beans, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, I think I should put in some more garlic as well, I’m also waiting for some leek plants to arrive but they seem to have disappeared in the post! All I have to do now is decide where I am going to plant all this as I also need to heavily muck the beds to get the best soil I can for next springs plantings.

Then I did a bit of picking, tomatoes, courgettes, more runner beans and some purple French beans (I really need to grow many more of these next year) and half a bucket of elderberries which are beautifully ripe now. I made elderberry syrup with them, for pouring on ice cream or with yoghurt in the mornings, it’s packed with vitamin c and extremely good for you, the syrup can also be used if you have a cough or mixed with a bit of honey as a hot drink for some tlc when you have a cold.

I had a bit of an accident later in the afternoon, when Sam and Mia came over they had picked me some blackberries and so I took Mia out to get some cooking apples off the tree for her to take home for crumble, then when Josh came over I went out with him to get him some apples as well, only this time I failed to see a low (head height) stumpy branch and walked straight into it with a thump, it jarred my neck and put me on the floor 😏

Tuesday: Dull again with that very fine drizzle, almost just a misting really, it was like that yesterday, it couldn’t quite make up its mind what it was going to do. Foraged for the rabbits this morning, a big bucket full of herbs and weeds, some dandelions for the torts along with some fallen apples and a couple of small courgettes. I have watered anything in pots as it is quite dry, I’m contemplating watering the veg later on if the sun comes out as they say it should. Lots of jobs I really should be doing but I’m quite tired even though I only got up a couple of hours ago, it will be interesting to see what the blood results are later this week, I feel like I’m always bordering on getting a cold 😏

I have been constantly looking for something to make another small water garden with and the answer was under my nose all the time, we have some old metal water tanks and one of them by the kennels is no longer connected to any drainpipe so I think I will use that I just need to empty it and drag it into the garden, fill it back up and put some of the pond plants in it, I think it will work fine, if I can summon up some energy I will do it later, It’s mostly to attract insects and increase the diversity in the garden. I might even put some fish in it, I need to measure it and make sure it’s deep enough that it doesn’t freeze in winter though.

In the big raised bed between the poly tunnels I have sown some winter grazing rye, mostly this will be for the rabbits over winter but the roots will stabilise the soil structure and then be dug in as a green manure when the time comes, I have had the packet for a couple of years and never got round to sowing it so hopefully it’s still viable.

I noticed that the dogs are eating the hazelnuts, that fall on the ground much more frequently now, and a quick look on the trees tells me that they are definitely ready which is about 2/3 weeks earlier than normal, it looks like everything is going to come at once now, apples, plums, pears, blackberries and nuts, busy times 😋

Back to the water garden thing and I also realised that I have the perfect opportunity in a tank that is already in the fruit cage so I filled it right up with rainwater and pulled some water plants from the other small pond to transfer over, the pond plants help to keep the water clean and aerated. I will have mini water gardens all over the place at this rate 😀

Shelley, Josh and Florence came over and I had Mia today so we arranged to go blackberry picking along Scrubbs Lane, Shelley and I got a tub full each, Mia and Josh ate every single one they picked 🤣🤣 The plum tree (lovely yellow plums) that is along there is sadly riddled with plum moth this year so we didn’t get any, never mind we will try again next year.

Ooops so I did this thing, I ordered 1000 daffodil bulbs 🤪 guess that’s another job on the list of things to do when they arrive! Next spring however we will be selling bunches of daffs at the gate 😀

Wednesday: A bit cooler today and overcast but just right for me 😀 John did the main feeding etc although I noticed later that he had forgot to let the geese out and turn off the water into the duck pond! I collected rabbit greens and sorted out the orchard birds then Mum arrived to do some gardening, some tidying and some weeding, it’s that time of year when it looks looms a bit scruffy and now it’s looking a lot better 😀 I picked some Victoria plums, on one side of the tree there is no moth that has burrowed in so they are fine, I had the plums picked and made into jam and jarred up in an hour 😀 cant get better than that and it’s a beautiful pink colour, fabulous, I gave Mum a jar in return for her hard work.

Then Mia arrived for the day and she played outside for a bit until she tripped over the hose and hit her face on the wheelbarrow handle ☹️

Out in the evening for curry with my friends.

Thursday: Raining this morning, that’s good because I had started having to water again as it was getting very dry. Spent a couple of hours sorting out insurance and paperwork for our up coming holiday, why does it always take so long, John thinks it’s a 2 minute job! Then did the orchard animals and collected some eggs to put out for sale, I noticed that some of the ducks are growing new wing feathers so hopefully they will come back into lay soon. Out of the 90 hens in the front paddock only around 60 of them are laying at the minute, lots of them are in a moult, that together with the disappearing daylight hours mean egg numbers drop a fair bit but it’s not quite time to put a light in, though we could trial it and see if it helps. I also have wormer ordered and ready to pick up so we will begin a week long dose on Sunday, these hybrids have to kept in tip top condition to perform, just like an F1 car 😜

I picked the apples from my eating apple tree, the wasps have started on them and they are beginning to fall so that tells me they are ready and last year I lost the lot to the birds so I was determined to harvest them this year 🤪 and as they will continue to ripen after picking we are all good, I need to get to the pears as soon as possible too. These are not ‘keeper’ apples so they won’t store all winter but they will last a month in the bottom of the fridge, a bit too many for us so I will be giving some of them to Shelley and Sam for the grandchildren 😀 I also picked a fair few cucumbers, more than I thought were out there, some tomatoes and some French beans which have suddenly decided to kick start production.

Friday: Definite chill in the air this morning though the day itself was not bad. I picked all the pears from my dual pear tree, one side they are fab, the other side they are not so good, scabby and useless, I also picked another load of plums but really need to get some sugar to make jam before they get too ripe. I quickly made a pear and cinnamon cake and then went on a busmans day out with the grandchildren to a farm 😀 While I was there I bought some unhomogenised organic milk and some organic butter, if I get a minute I will try making some cheese with the milk.

Very tired when I got home but I had the afternoon feeding and egg to collect as the egg shed was empty, then as I sit down to type up this and I can hear a bloody mouse or something scratching in the wall cavity. I will either have to set a trap or shut the cat in the back for the night, I really don’t want to use poison because they always choose to die in the wall and then it stinks 😷 besides that it’s not good for the wildlife.

I am aware that I talk about the orchard and the birds/animals in there so I thought I would take some photos from various angles so you can see what it looks like, through the summer it is lovely and shaded, especially useful this summer! The fence along the left hand side in the top pic is the one between the orchard and the paddock and the one I want to plant into an edible hedgeline, so far I have planted a couple of blackcurrants, comfrey, thornless blackberry, feverfew and a dog rose, I have also sprinkled plenty of marigold and love in a mist seeds along there too.

For the first time ever John cooked his own dinner! Now just to clarify he does cook cheese on toast and sausages/bacon and eggs but that’s it, the extent of his culinary talents, so tonight I made him cook his own, from start to finish, peeling the spuds and everything 😜 I didn’t even help him with the timings and voila now he thinks he could manage masterchef 🤣🤣

I found just over half a bottle of vodka in the cupboard and so I figured pear liqueur was a good thing to try, pierce holes in the pear, put in a jar, cover with vodka, add nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and orange peel, leave for two weeks and then add sugar and leave until Christmas time 😀 enjoy on a cold night hopefully 😋

So with all these pears, naturally I have been looking at recipes, one thing I have never tried is canning and I will admit that breaking open a fresh jar of pears in the winter sounds very appealing. Looking at how it’s done it seems simple enough, I’m thinking I can do the water bath method in a large stewing saucepan with a lid, I have a trivet, I just need to dig out my killer jars and I will give it a go even if it’s only a couple of jars. If anyone has experience of canning I would love to hear your tips and methods.

Saturday: After last nights rain it’s sunny this morning but with a chill in the air. Sorted out the orchard lot first and then did some picking as someone requested runner beans yesterday. It’s surprising how long it all takes really and to be fully self sufficient would take an awful lot longer or at the least need two people doing it all, at the minute we kind of muddle through, John doing the maintenance and building runs and coops etc, feeding the birds in the mornings and cleaning out the two main lot of hens weekly, while I do everything else! The list is endless, sowing, growing, hoeing, mowing, watering, harvesting, processing, cooking, cleaning, washing, paperwork, and I have been asked ‘what do you find to do all day’! Well in order to make the most of everything it takes time, effort, perseverance and determination, one day I will write a comprehensive list of everything 🤪 in the meantime that’s what the blog is for, so I can keep a check on what I have done.

The cats have been acting very strangely of late, constantly following us around and meowing, even the pizza delivery guy (wrong address it was for next door) said ‘I think there is something wrong with your cat’ well no, there is nothing wrong with him, he is just weird at the moment, I wormed and flead them just in case, the full moon probably has something to do with it, but they have become a bit needy and follow you round like a dog. John did shut Diesel in the back area last night in the hopes that he will catch whatever it was in the wall, one good thing about him being under your feet, you don’t have to go searching 😀

We sold out of eggs within an hour yesterday afternoon so consequently there is a delay this morning until the girls get going again, I hate it when customers come and there are no eggs but there is not much I can do about it, one customer has asked for more plum jam but I need to pick the rest of the plums first and I need a bigger ladder and preferably another person there, John has had to go to work this morning and also do his Mums breakfast and her shopping first thing so hopefully we can pick them this afternoon.

I have a mother load of pears, some small but most are of a good size, so in the oven at the moment on a low temp are two trays of pear crisps, never done them before so I will be interesting to see how they turn out. I’m hoping the grandchildren will like them, Mia’s first words when she gets here are always ‘I very ‘ungry’ meaning she wants a biscuit 😜 o hopefully they will be a good substitute.

The basil needed picking and so I made some pesto, a small jar for the fridge to be used within a couple of days and then a small tub for the freezer which can be used anytime I need some. Basil smells amazing, it’s one of the best smells I think. The older leaves and stalks I have to the rabbits who have had a good mix of willow and herbs today.

The pear crisps turned out ok, they got the thumbs up from Macca at any rate 😀 I will try them on the grandchildren and they may become a regular thing, great for snacking on.

John helped to pick the rest of the plums and I managed to get the last 4 bags of preserving sugar on the shelf when I went shopping so plum jam is on the to do list.

Sunday: Wet today! We picked around 4kg of plums yesterday taking the final amount to around 6kg from the one tree😀 so this morning I have mostly been processing plums, 3kg of plum jam a jar of plum sauce (plums, onion, garlic, vinegar, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and star anise (take that out before bottling) purée, re heat and bottle) and cooked down some with sugar for the freezer ready for crumbles in the winter.

This afternoon we are on a whole family picnic 😝 only it’s wet but we have booked a hall (there are a lot of us) in the event of wet weather so that’s good or it would be if I hadn’t decided to take bbq food and a disposable bbq, now I’m a bit stuffed with what to do lol. I needn’t have worried there was enough food to feed an army 🤣 fabulous afternoon had by young and old alike.

Have a fabulous week people x